It’s possible you got into crypto because you heard it was a way to get rich quickly.
And you might have been disappointed if you bought in during the hype that surrounds the bull market only to watch your investment decrease in value throughout 2022.
Plus, if the despair of the previous year didn’t get to you, the boredom of this year just might.
But, speaking as someone who survived the 2018-2019 crypto winter, I can humbly say that if you can fight through the boredom and continue in your quest to build wealth with crypto while the market is less exciting, you might just make it as a crypto investor.
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Here are some tips to help you stay focused while the crypto market is quiet:
1. Choose Which Crypto Exchange Is Best For You
When you originally got into crypto, you may have just purchased digital assets from the first exchange you came across without thinking much about its fees and features.
If you take a moment to review the best crypto exchanges out there, you might find that you’ve been paying very high trading fees on the exchange you currently use. For example, maybe you make instant purchases on an exchange where fees are as high as 2% when you could be trading under $1,000 worth of crypto per month on an exchange like Bitstamp for free.
If you plan to actively manage your crypto portfolio, then trading fees can add up. Revisit where you’re trading, and see if you can reduce the fees and keep more of your gains.
2. Stick With Blue Chip Crypto Assets In The Bear Market
It’s hard to tell what the hot new altcoin will go to the moon in the next big bull run. However, it’s likely (though not guaranteed) that Bitcoin (BTC) and Ether (ETH) — the native currency on the Ethereum blockchain — will bounce back and hit new all-time highs during the next major crypto bull run. These “blue chip” digital assets have been around for 14 and eight years, respectively, and have proven to hold value over longer periods than most other crypto assets.
So, if you’re dollar-cost averaging into crypto assets during this bear market, you may want to stick with assets that have bounced back in previous cycles.
You can always invest further out on the crypto risk curve — that is, buy riskier altcoins — once we’re in the early stages of a major bull market.
3. Learn About What You’re Investing In
Have you read The Bitcoin Standard: The Decentralized Alternative to Central Banking by Saifedean Ammous or The Infinite Machine: How an Army of Crypto-hackers Is Building the Next Internet with Ethereum by Camila Russo yet?
If not, now might be a good time to brush up on the history as well as the ins and outs of the technology you’re investing in.
If you really want to be a crypto investor and not just a short-term speculator, then it might help to deepen your knowledge of the digital assets you’re holding.
4. Do The Math
Let’s say you have $3,000 to invest, and you hope to turn that into $10,000 by the end of the next major crypto bull run.
Look back at previous Bitcoin halving cycles as a means to gauge where the price of BTC might be heading come 2024, post-halving.
If you think that the price of BTC will break $100,000 after the next halving, then dollar-cost averaging that $3,000 into BTC, while its price is well below $30,000, should get you above and beyond that $10,000 mark.
Keep in mind, though, that BTC’s price is not guaranteed to go to $100,000 and that BTC’s past performance is not a guaranteed indicator of future results.
5. Take A Short Breather
If you follow the crypto market intently day-in-day-out, you may want to take at least a minor breather during the bear market — if only to preserve your mental health as a crypto investor.
Consider stepping away from the screen and “touching grass” (slang for telling someone who spends a lot of time online to go outside for a bit) while things aren’t all that exciting.
You can still invest as you take a breather, as you can still automate a dollar-cost averaging strategy to continue to buy the digital assets that you like even while you’re not in front of the screen.
Chances are, the crypto market will pick back up at some point, and you may be better off approaching it with a clearer mind.
Don’t Give Up
According to an old adage, fortunes are made in bear markets and collected in bull markets.
More directly said, successful investors buy valuable assets when they’re selling at a discount and then sell them at a premium. They put their money into the market when the market is dull, boring or downright depressing, and they pull it out when the hype cycle is in full effect again.
You may have gotten into crypto thinking you’d get rich overnight, and that may not have happened. But it doesn’t mean you still don’t have the opportunity to build wealth as a crypto investor.
If that’s your goal, then your work is learning how to stay committed to investing in crypto and not allowing boredom to drive you out of the market while it’s less than exciting.
